REDEEMED BY LOVE
Iwas twenty-two years old when I received word that my mother was dying, and I wasn’t prepared for the mixed feelings this news would elicit within me.
I was living in New York at the time, still a relatively new baby in the faith, and serving as the head of Teen Challenge Ministries. My mother was in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico, on her deathbed in the tiny stucco home where I had grown up. Most of my seventeen brothers and one sister were already at her side by the time the news reached me.
I wished I could have said that I loved my mother at the time, but I couldn’t. If anything, my feelings toward her ranged from hate to indifference. I’d spent much of my childhood hiding from her and the balance of it getting away from her. To me she symbolized everything that I despised about my past.
I wanted so much to forget the many times she had beaten me and cursed at me. I felt detested by her, even as a young boy. I remember standing before her once as she called me a “child of the devil” in front of her friends. She made me feel like nothing, a waste of space on the earth, a mistake, an ugly child who should never have been born.
For so many years I longed to get close to my mother, to hold her, to feel her kiss on my cheek. But Satan had such a grip on her heart that she didn’t know how to love, and I didn’t know how to love her back. Evil had taken hold in her spirit, and it wouldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t allow her to be the mother that I so desperately wanted and needed.
And now she was dying.
Was I supposed to be sad? to cry? to pretend that I loved her and run to her side like any good son would do? I honestly didn’t know. But deep in my heart I did know what Jesus would do. He would go see his dying mother. So I booked a flight to Puerto Rico.
I had forgotten how beautiful Puerto Rico could be. Growing up in such darkness and horror, I had never learned to appreciate the picturesque surroundings of our little island in the Atlantic. Las Piedras is perfectly nestled in a valley of lush green, framed by untold beauty. You feel as if you could reach out with one arm and embrace the magnificent El Yunque Mountains, and with the other allow your fingers to swim along the aqua blue waters of the ocean. We used to call this place “The Rainfall.” It’s one of the most stunning places on earth.
Seeing my parents’ house for the first time in seven years was a bit of a shock for me. The place looked so small and insignificant. Like any other house on the block. But in my heart I knew that wasn’t true. This house was evil to the core, filled with horrible memories and unspeakable pain. Every crevice harbored demons of abuse and neglect–demons that still lingered, roaming the halls at night, haunting like a bad nightmare. I could feel them in my bones.
Behind the home, about a hundred yards into the woods, still stood the large round building–the place that so frightened me as a child and now sent chills to the center of my being. As a boy I knew it only as the “Spirit House,” the place where my mother and father went regularly to summon the healing spirits. The town was convinced that they knew what went on here, and rumors ran thick throughout Puerto Rico, but few had seen it up close and personal. They suspected evil and talked of the hideous things going on inside the infamous Spirit House; I had seen it firsthand.
As I stood staring at the large round building framed by trees, the memories began to rise to the surface. Memories of strange and unexplainable things that happened here on a regular basis–things that I still resist speaking of, all these years later.
My father was a spiritist–some say the most powerful in all of Puerto Rico–and my mother was a medium. So many times I watched helplessly from outside the window as their bizarre séances raged out of control. People inside would wail and moan and scream, summoning the spirits of the dead to awaken in their presence. Sometimes these spirits would take over my mother’s body, turning her face white and her eyes violently yellow. Once I saw an evil spirit come upon her with such force that it catapulted her through the air. Though she was a small woman, it took four or five men to contain her.
Another time I saw my father become possessed by a spirit he couldn’t control. He grabbed my youngest brother, put a rope around his neck, and tried to hang him from the limb of a tree. It took the combined strength of the whole family to hold him down as my brother slipped free. Later my father had no memory of the ordeal. In his right mind he would never have done such a thing to his children.
Even at a young age I understood the dangers of dabbling in the occult. Yet I found myself living in a home that did far more than dabble. We were known throughout the island as the home of
El Taumaturgo (the Wonder Worker, the Great One). The place you go to find the warlock and the witch of Las Piedras.
Bound by Pain
I couldn’t remember how many times I had sworn never to come back–never again to darken the evil doors of my parents’ home. Yet here I was. And my mother was dying. As I slipped through the small corridors of our house, I could feel the satanic forces surrounding the house, the forces that had kept my family bound in darkness for so many years.
My mother didn’t recognize me the first time I walked into her bedroom. I can still see her lying there, babbling incoherently, with sweat pouring down the sides of her face. I tried to talk to her, but she just stared at me, her eyes cold and empty. Lifeless eyes. Loveless eyes.
“Mama, it’s me, Nicky,” I said to her several times. She didn’t respond,
just stared right through me as if I wasn’t there.
As if she were possessed by some ancient, evil spirit.
The sight of my mother’s dark and wicked gaze was more than I could handle, so I turned and fled. I told my father I would be back, but I wasn’t sure I meant it.
Why am I even here? I thought.
She doesn’t love me; she doesn’t even know me. Her days of evil have caught up with her, and now she’s facing God’s judgment. Who am I to interfere?
I took off walking down the street, down the long road leading away from my parents’ house, away from the evil that hovered and haunted all around. The whole time I was there I could feel Satan taunting me, touching me, grabbing at my clothes. My parents’ home was a rathole of evil, and I could feel it with every fiber of my being. I had to get away, to escape the forces of oppression attacking me.
I considered catching an early flight back to New York, back to Gloria and my new life in God’s service. People there needed me–people at Teen Challenge, the ministry that God had called me to. There they understood me. They knew that I was no longer a slave to my past, no longer bound to the hate and abuse of my childhood. No longer the “child of the devil” that my mother had tried to make me.
She deserves this fate. She will die as she lived–surrounded by sin and possessed by evil. I can’t help her now. No one can. She worshiped Satan on earth, now she will spend an eternity licking his boots in hell!
As I walked along the lush green valley, listening to the birds singing and the animals scurrying through the woods, the farther I got from the house the more peaceful things became. The scent of Satan grew dimmer with each step. I had every intention of leaving, of going back to New York and forgetting my mother forever, of going on with my life and putting my past behind me. Yet somewhere, deep in my spirit, I knew I couldn’t. God wouldn’t let me go. I knew I had to go back.
Suddenly I heard the sound of singing in the distance. Beautiful voices, echoing through the wind, like songs of praise. I remembered a church not far from my parents’ home. It was Monday evening, and I didn’t expect anyone to be in church, yet the sounds grew stronger as I drew nearer.
I need to be around other believers, I thought.
People like me. Maybe they can pray with me–pray for me. Give me some spiritual support before I have to face those evil eyes again!
A Cry for Help
I walked to the church and sat in the back. They were having testimonies, so I sat and listened until there was an appropriate opportunity for me to rise and make a statement about my family. The pastor didn’t know me, so as I stood, I introduced myself. I said, “My name is Nicky Cruz, son of Don Galo and Aleja Velazques Cruz. I want to ask you to come to my house to pray for my mother.”
“Welcome, Nicky,” he said, and we embraced.
A group gathered around us as I told him of my dying mother. I explained my need for prayers and support, and as I was speaking, I repeated, “Pastor, would you be willing to come with me and pray for my mother?”
Before he had a chance to answer, I turned to those standing nearby and asked, “Would any of you come and pray for my mother?”
No one said a word. The silence was deafening, and several stepped back. Suddenly one woman moved forward–a woman with fire in her eyes and hate in her voice. “We cannot go to that house,” she said. “That house is evil. That man and woman are demon-possessed. All their children are evil. Even their dog is possessed by the devil. We will not go near that place.”
My heart sank. I glanced around the room, and no one would look at me. All eyes fell to the floor, sheepishly. It wasn’t apathy I sensed but fear. Everyone knew what went on at the Spirit House.
I caught the pastor’s eyes and locked onto them. Then in one last effort, I said to him, “Pastor, I’m going to ask...
